Sell Like an A.C.E. and You’ll be Treated Like a King

By Bryan Flanagan, Sales Ambassador

If you play your cards right, you can have a great day each day of your life! 

Let’s take the ace from a deck of playing cards and form an acronym.
 A = Attitude
 C = Confidence
 E = Enthusiasm

Attitude
What separates the successful, high performing individual from the almost-just-on-the-verge-of-success individual?  It’s not how they react to the positives in life…it’s how they react to the negatives in life!  It’s the lemon-lemonade concept.  Just after taking the oath as the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan was shot.  While in the operating room, he turned to the doctors and said, “I hope you are all Republicans!”  To his wife Nancy he said, “Honey, I forgot to duck!”  Whether you liked President Reagan or not, I think you’ll agree that’s the type of attitude you can admire. 

Confidence
You must have confidence in yourself, your abilities, your company, and your teammates.  If you don’t have confidence in these areas, how can your customers have confidence in you or your company?  They can’t.  Basketball great Larry Bird had confidence.  In the 1986 NBA All-Star Game, he was competing in the three-point shooting contest.  Prior to going on the court to warm up, he turned to the other seven contestants and asked, “Hey, which of you guys is playing for second place today?”  That’s confidence!

Enthusiasm
Nothing great has been accomplished without enthusiasm!  That doesn’t mean you have to jump up and down, snort, shout and flail your arms.  That’s not enthusiasm…that’s hysteria!  Enthusiasm is that extra pep in your step, that pride in your stride.  It also means getting excited internally about your family, your friends, your career, your company, your teammates.  And enthusiasm puts you into action.  It’s like the young couple who was parked at the lake and the young woman said, “It would be great if you put the top of the car down.”  Within three minutes the young man had the car top down.  Not bad, considering the car was not a convertible!  That’s enthusiasm.

Today, maintain a positive ATTITUDE, build your CONFIDENCE, and show your ENTHUSIASM in all that you do.

Bryan Flanagan is the Sales Ambassador for Ziglar.  He is the lead sales trainer and coach and author of “Now Go Sell Somebody Something.”  Read Bryan’s blog.  Follow Bryan on Twitter @bryanflanagan.

 
Proposal Writing - How to Make Your Proposals Attractive to Your Clients  

By Al Borowski

Successful proposal writing requires you to make your proposals attractive as well as informative. Your proposal needs to offer your clients a sample of what their world will look like and feel like when they select you for their project.

You can make your proposals more attractive in at least three ways.

AVOID THE “WAR AND PEACE” PROPOSAL

Don’t force your clients to dread reviewing your proposals because they conjure up images of reading “War and Peace.”

Use the proper mix of graphics, fonts, photos, headers, bullets, and paragraphs that immediately proves to the clients that your proposal will be pleasing to the eye and not a burden on their brain.

FLATTERY WILL GET YOU MORE BUSINESS THAN BRAGGING

Attractive also means the readers will be drawn into your proposal because it addresses their stated wants, needs, desires, goals, budgets and timetables. Flatter your clients by making them the Number One consideration in the proposal, not the great things your products or services have done for others.

Your clients will be attracted to the proposal because it fits their situation, not your capabilities and past successes.

AIM FOR THE HEART AND THE HEAD

Your proposals become more attractive when they appeal to your clients emotionally and logically.

It appeals to their emotions because they appreciate something created to solve their problem, fix their pain, or vault them into a productive, prominent, and profitable position.

It appeals to their logic because they recognize the value your solution delivers to them. Your solution may not be the lowest price, but the value your solution brings far exceeds any cost considerations.

Attract more business; attract more profits; make your proposals attractive to your clients.

Thus, editing and evaluating your proposals should become a critical step in your proposal creation process. For your FREE instant access to an offer to evaluate up to 20 pages of your next non-government proposal, please click here.

Al Borowski, MEd, CSP, PP - speaking and training on, evaluating, and editing proposals that sell.

Lighter Side of Selling

Ziglar Recommends

The One Year Daily Insights with Zig Ziglar

Do you want to make the most of your life? Zig Ziglar, one of today’s most respected motivational speakers and authors, sincerely hopes and believes that you do. Together with Dr. Ike Reighard, Zig has included his favorite Scriptures, an insightful message, thoughtful questions to lead you to a deeper application of the message, and an inspirational quote to motivate you each day of the year.

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This newsletter is published by Ziglar.  http://www.ziglar.com

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Some Questions and Some Answers

By Bryan Flanagan

I recently did a live webcast presenting information on how to sell more effectively.  I received many questions and thought I would share some of them, along with my answers, with you.

Q:  Are there advantages or disadvantages to revealing the cost of your product at the beginning of your presentation?

A:  There are probably more disadvantages than there are advantages.

One solid selling principle is this: Never quote price until you’ve established value. The reason, if you haven’t shown the value of your solution, then any price you quote will be too high because the client hasn’t seen the advantages of your system, so if you give a price, what will it be compared to?

I am sure there are some industries where the client knows the price (car dealers, homes, etc.), but most of the time it is better to build value before quoting price.

Q:   Should I follow up on the prospecting activities on my team to ensure quality activity?

A:  You have to inspect what you expect. Yet, at the same time, you must inform your team that you are inspecting them.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself:
 1. What is the incentive for my sales team to conduct quality prospecting?
 2. What are the consequences if they fail to conduct quality prospecting?
 3. What are the benefits for my team to comply with these standards?

If you can answer those questions, it may help you follow up on them.

Q:   How do we position ourselves as professional peers to new prospects so that preconceived ideas about the brand we represent do not shut out opportunities?

A:  One way to deal with past/preconceived ideas is to ask the prospect what are his/her thoughts about the product. Then if they have a concern, ask, “What would it take for you to feel comfortable that we’ve satisfactorily solved those issues?” The answer may give you some direction on where to take the call.

Q:   What is the one qualifying question that has seemed to stimulate the most information from a prospect? 

A:  One question that I like is this:
“If you were to solve this issue, what would be the benefit to you?”
The answer helps give you direction on where to take the sales interview.

If you have questions, please email them to editor@ziglar.com.

Bryan Flanagan is the Sales Ambassador for Ziglar.  He is the premiere sales coach and author.  Bryan has a wealth of selling experience and knowledge.  Follow Bryan on Twitter @bryanflanagan. 

5 Reasons Cold Calling is a Blast!

By Dr. Gary Goodman

Sigourney Weaver is one of the stars of the hit movie, “Avatar.”

She plays an earnest scientist, dispatched to study the ecosystem of a beautiful, faraway earth-type of planet.

In a recent interview she looked back on her spate of successful extraterrestrial films, which include “Alien,” “Alien-2.” “Galaxy Quest,” a personal favorite that I just bought on DVD, and of course, James Cameron’s latest epic.

“Space has been very good to me!” she quipped.

Looking back on my career, I’d have to say telemarketing has been very good to me. My number one tool for opening and closing business, setting up distribution and publishing relationships, the phone enabled me to open a very successful training, speaking, and consulting firm on a shoestring.

While others that suffer from call reluctance wail that cold calling doesn’t work, I think it’s a blast — for five reasons:

(1) Forrest Gump would have said it’s like a box of chocolates because you never know what you’re going to get until you open a conversation. The upside potential is unlimited. A financial industry client earned a million dollar commission from a cold call.

(2) Like speed dating, but more meaningful, speed dialing can introduce you to more people in less time, while having truly interactive, potentially rewarding real-time conversations, than any other medium. Texting doesn’t come close.

(3) You can CHOOSE with whom to do business. Through careful targeting you can optimize everyone’s time and seek only those clients and customers for whom you are a great fit.

(4) The worst thing that can happen is you’ll invest a few minutes without an immediate payback. That’s a lot easier on the wallet and ego than schlepping across the country or even the city to knock on doors.

(5) The phone is one of the greenest sales and marketing media around. Not even a carbon toe-print is required.

So, isn’t it time you reached out to sell someone?

When combined with well-designed voice and emails, as well as guided web browsing, it is a more powerful and rewarding tool than ever.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a top speaker, sales, service, and negotiation consultant, attorney, TV and radio commentator and the best-selling author of 12 books, including REACH OUT & SELL SOMEONE and YOU CAN SELL ANYTHING BY TELEPHONE! He conducts seminars and speaks at convention programs around the world. His new audio program is Nightingale-Conant’s “Crystal Clear Communication: How to Explain Anything Clearly in Speech & Writing.” His web site is: http://www.customersatisfaction.com and he can be contacted at gary@customersatisfaction.com.

The Lighter Side of Selling

For a couple years I ‘ve been blaming it on lack of sleep and too much pressure from my job, but now I found out the real reason: I’m tired because I’m overworked. The population of this country is 237 million. 104 million are retired. That leaves 133 million to do the work. There are 85 million in school, which leaves 48 million to do the work. Of this there are 29 million employed by the federal government, leaving 19 million to do the work. 2.8 million are in the Armed Forces, which leaves 16.2 million to do the work. Take from the total the 14,800,000 people who work for State and City Governments and that leaves 1.4 million to do the work. At any given time there are 188,000 people in hospitals, leaving 1,212,000 to do the work. Now, there are 1,211,998 people in prisons. That leaves just two people to do the work. You and me. And you’re sitting at your computer reading jokes.

Ziglar Recommends

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This newsletter is published by Ziglar, Inc.  Visit our website at http://www.Ziglar.com

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I Believe in Christmas

By Zig Ziglar

It’s the first Christmas I can remember. It arrived just seven weeks after the deaths of my father and baby sister. To make matters worse, it was in the heart of the Great Depression. Things were tough. All of us children who were older made what income contributions we could, but the truth was my mother had eight of her eleven remaining children still living at home, and six were too young to work. Understandably, the Ziglar kids were concerned about what kind of Christmas it would be! 

The good news is that though our grief was fresh, we still celebrated Christmas. We received no toys that year, but much to my delight in my gift box I found three English walnuts and something I had never tasted before—raisins! They were absolutely delicious.  Mama prepared her wonderful molasses candy and we had a small cedar tree. And my mother read the Christmas story, like she always did.

My sixth Christmas will always have great meaning to me. We celebrated the birth of Christ even in hard times because we believed in Christmas.

A CHANGE IN CELEBRATING THE SEASON
Unfortunately, over the years things have changed. The cheerful “Merry Christmas” of yesteryear has been replaced by the politically correct “Happy Holidays!” In the minds of many people we celebrate “holidays.” Not only is Christ not at the center of the celebration, he isn’t even considered to be the reason for the season!

If I seem upset about the changes that I see taking place in regard to Christmas, it is because I am! It’s not because an old tradition is being changed. No, I’m upset that the event that made it possible for me to have a life I could never have imagined is being hidden from view with decorations, wrapping paper, parties and political correctness! 

CHRISTMAS! A REASON TO CELEBRATE
You see, I believe it’s worth celebrating that Jesus came to earth—His birth signaled hope for all mankind. I believe that as he lived out a perfect life before God and mankind, he showed that he truly was God’s Son. And I believe that by giving his life up on a cross, he completely paid the penalty that my sins—and yours—deserve before a holy God. And it was made possible because of that first Christmas.

How could I not believe in Christmas? Because Christ was born as a baby in a manger that’s more than enough reason to celebrate Christmas for what it is—a joyful occasion.  I’ve experienced forgiveness of my sins and have the assurance of eternity in Heaven! 

If you don’t know Jesus Christ, let me say that He tells us in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  How do you do that? First, understand that I’m talking about a relationship, not a religion. All the world’s major religions emphasize that you qualify for heaven by your good works—the things that you do. Such “religion” is spelled “d-o.” Christianity is spelled “d-o-n-e.” Christ already paid for our sins when He died on the cross. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). And he rose from the grave proving that the punishment for our sins was fully paid.

 
Nothing we could ever “do” could qualify us for God’s forgiveness and reserve our place in heaven.  That’s why Christ himself said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him who he has sent” (John 6:29).

CELEBRATE LIKE NEVER BEFORE!
God forgives us, saves us from our sins, and gives us eternal life based on our belief in what Jesus did for us. Why? Because God is gracious beyond measure! The Bible says that it is “…by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works…” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Though “the wages of sin is death” [eternal separation from God], the greatest Christmas gift we could ever have is “the free gift of God…eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

With gift-giving like that from God, I don’t want to lose the significance of Christmas. I believe in Christmas!

I urge you to accept the greatest “Christmas gift” you’ll ever receive: If you’re convinced that God’s way is the only way to meaningful life now and eternal life in heaven, you can tell him in words like these…”Dear God, I do believe Jesus died for me, and took the punishment my sins deserved. I want to receive your free gift of salvation and eternal life. Thank you for making this possible!”

Then join me this year in celebrating Christmas like you’ve never celebrated it before!

Merry Christmas

This newsletter is published by Ziglar, Inc.  For more information, click here.

admin Uncategorized attitude, Christmas, Zig Ziglar

Marketing Ideas for Your Business

By Bryan Flanagan, Ziglar Sales Ambassador

Here are some creative ways that business people have found to promote their businesses.  They have also found a way to put people in their stores and put a smile on their faces while they are there!

A sign in an optometrist’s office: If you can’t see what you want, you’re in the right place!

Sign in a pizza parlor:  We knead your dough!

Banner above a bank:  Let us give your legal tender loving care.

Sign outside a barbershop:  We fix $7.00 haircuts.

At a coin collector’s shop:  Drop by for old dime’s sake.

Printed on a plumber’s van:  Our flush beats your full house.

Let’s take a lesson from the above ideas and have fun with your business.

Bryan Flanagan is the premiere sales trainer.  Personally trained by Zig Ziglar, Bryan will make you proud to be in the profession of sales.  Follow Bryan on Twitter. 

Success 2.0

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Focus on Your Sales Success in 2010

Featuring Bryan Flanagan, Ziglar’s Sales Ambassador

December 15, 2009       2:00-3:15 pm CST

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Why Is A 90% Failure Rate Ok?

By Sharon Drew Morgen

We build a 90% failure rate into our sales results; it’s so endemic in our field that we prepare for it! We hire 10 times more salespeople to get the results we seek; we get 50% longer sales cycles than we could be having; we face objections because people are responding to the sales model itself; and we lose clients we shouldn’t lose. To make matters worse, we often get turned down because our process doesn’t manage many of the buyer’s decision issues – even when our solution would be a perfect fit.

What a waste - not only for sellers, but for buyers.

This doesn’t need to happen. Sales is just an incomplete model that we’ve accepted as the way to place our products. It is directed at the product decision end of the buying decision with no ability to guide buyers through their tangle of “stuff” they need to figure out — the people and policy issues, the old vendor issues, the relationship and political and interdepartmental issues — before they can make a buying decision. It’s where prospects go when they say, “I’ll call you back.” They have to get buy-in from everything that touches their Identified Problem. Sales doesn’t offer skills for this, and buyers do this on their own.  The time it takes them is the length of the sales cycle.

Unfortunately for them, buyers don’t initially know the route through all of their decisions, either. And we meet them far too early in their decision process, leaving us waiting to close and not knowing what’s going on.  So we wait. And 90% of the prospects don’t come back because their internal issues haven’t been resolved. And buyers can’t buy until they get buy-in — even if it means they don’t resolve their need.

Sales doesn’t offer us the tools to help guide them through the route to all of those decisions. It’s quite possible to recalibrate our jobs to be not only solution providers, but neutral navigators — Buying Facilitators, if you will — much like a buddy to a sight-impaired friend who knows where they want to go but doesn’t know the exact route to get there. Or like a GPS system that can calibrate the route without driving the car or being involved with the wedding you are attending.

By focusing on the buying decision end of the equation, sales can be closed in months rather than years, weeks rather than months, and sellers can stop wasting so much of their time. And failing so often. Imagine if doctors or baseball players had the same failure rate!

Imagine if we could lead buyers through all of their unconscious decision criteria, help them discover who needs to buy in to a new solution, and help them build our product into their solution design. Imagine.

Sharon Drew Morgen is a visionary and thought leader in sales. Sharon Drew’s newest book, Dirty Little Secrets, details the entire system of decision making, offers tools to transform flaws in the sales module and help buyers manager their off-line, behind-the-scenes buying decisions.

Read the first chapter of The Dirty Little Secret: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it.

Talk Back

Give your answer in the comment section below: “You may be a salesperson if…”(with our apologies to Jeff Foxworthy!)

Lighter Sides of Selling

Sales manager Ralph asks sales manager Eddie, “Why don’t you play golf with Bill, your sales rep?”
Eddie, says, “Well, would you play with someone who cheats? Who moves the ball to a better lie? Who doesn’t count all his strokes? Would you play with someone like that?”
Ralph says, “Of course, I wouldn’t play with a guy who did those things!”
Eddie says, “Well, neither will Bill!”

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Selling is a great profession. However, the sales profession is a challenging one. Just think about it: if selling were easy, sales managers would still be doing it! This program is designed to assist you in meeting those challenges by building the sales professional and motivating the salesperson.
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This newsletter is a publication of Ziglar, Inc.  Ziglar.com

admin Uncategorized attitude, closing the sale, free, professional growth, sales, sales professional, strengthen skills, webcast, Zig Ziglar

Eleven Sales Success Secrets

Listed below are 11 sales secrets.  Use these ideas to increase your sales productivity.

1. Establish value before you quote price.

2. Involve the customer with your product as quickly as possible.

3. Don’t quit before your prospect does.

4. Set clear objectives for each sales call and sales interaction.

5. Focus on relationships and not transactions.

6. Ask high-gain and high impact questions.

7. Accept the fact that some prospects really do want to think it over!

8. Logic makes people think, emotion makes people act.

9. Make it easy for the buyer to buy.

10. Interpret your benefits not your features.

11. Listen first, then explain.

Five Rules for Hiring Sales People

By Bryan Flanagan

Rule #1:  Hire attitude, teach skills.  Some research suggests that success is based on 85% people skills versus only 15% technical skills.  Training for skills is so much easier than performing an attitude transplant.  At Ziglar Training Systems we believe that the “I Can Attitude” is more important than the “I Q Attitude.”

Rule #2:  Don’t hire in your own image!  Analyze what your needs are and go find solid people that will fill those needs.  And guess what?  They may be different from you! 

Rule #3:  You are always recruiting, you are not always hiring.  Too often, we select a sales candidate from too small a pool of available talent!  Therefore, we should always be on the lookout for talented people and continue to expand our resources.  Observe people in various environments:  from the waiter at your favorite café, to the clerk at the department store, to the soccer mom on your daughter’s team. And, oh, by the way: don’t forget to look in your own backyard.  There may be potential sales champions working right under your own nose.  You know, those support team members who already know your business but may not know about the sales opportunities.

Rule #4:  Eagles don’t flock, you have to go get ‘em one at a time!  Don’t expect the world to beat a path to your door based on how well you write a Sunday newspaper ad!  You have to be on the lookout each and every day. 

Rule #5:  Look for people who aren’t looking.  Seek those people who are currently performing at a high level but who are receptive to new opportunities and greater challenges.  These are the candidates who take longer to bring on board, but prove to be solid performers because they know what it takes to achieve success.

Bryan Flanagan is Zig Ziglar’s Sales Ambassador.  He is a sales coach, consultant, author and presenter.  If you need to know anything about sales – ask Bryan!

Humor

Thoughts by a Sales Pro:
If you had to identify the single reason why sales people don’t achieve more and reach our full potential, that reason would be “sales meetings!”

Success 2.0

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Nov. 17th, 7:00-8:15 pm CST
Featuring Zig Ziglar, Tom Ziglar and Julie Ziglar Norman
Learn how to live a full life in the midst of struggles

Register for this FREE webcast!

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This newsletter is a publication of Ziglar, Inc.  To learn take advantage of more of our sales resouces, visit our website.

admin Uncategorized attitude, closing the sale, professional growth, sales, sales professional, strengthen skills, Zig Ziglar